Many Canadians don’t realize the extent to which our university tuition is subsidized by the government.  If you’ll allow me to grossly oversimplify for the sake of expediency, pretend that university tuition in Canada really costs the same as university tuition in the US, but that our government pays difference in the “sticker price.”  So, a private university, which would not receive this government subsidy would need to charge a significantly higher tuition, thereby pricing this private education out of the reach of the average Canadian student.  It’s an easy argument to say that only the wealthy will be able to afford this kind of education for their children, so therefore these private schools will create a two-tiered education system wherein the wealthy receive the “better” education.   So, we don’t dislike private universities so much because we dislike their offerings.  We dislike them because not everyone can afford to attend them.

As an advocate of choice, I don’t have a knee-jerk fear of private universities.  Redeemer University is a good example of a private university providing students with more choice: a fair compromise that allows a Christian university to offer degrees while not funding a religious mandate with secular tax dollars.

Quest University is a different kettle of fish.  As a secular institution offering a liberal arts education which wouldn’t automatically disqualify it from public funding, but its unique common curriculum and block scheduling are just some of the features that make it a very different kind of university.  So, do we need it and schools like it?  

In an age where all the information you need for an undergraduate education and more is available freely on the internet, I don’t think our public universities are the gatekeepers of higher education that they once were.   If students wish to access facts and ideas privately instead of through a public institution, and can satisfy the province’s accreditation requirements, then I don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to earn a degree for the same calibre of work. 

That being said, to protect our current public system, I’d probably want a private university to be providing something that a public university can’t or won’t: a religious curriculum, alternative program offerings, unique delivery methods, optional attendance etc. Our public institutions already allow students to choose from a variety of sizes, programs and locations.  There are even established, credible distance and independent study programs. Most students should be able to find an existing undergraduate program at a school that works for them.  But, far be it from me to put up obstacles to innovation and experimentation.  

If you just want to imitate what our schools already offer, then no thanks.  But I say, if you want to try something different on your own dime, then why not diversify the educational landscape in Canada?  

Another idea that comes to mind, but that I haven’t fully thought through yet:  do you “suffer” when you drive a $30,000 car simply because some companies produce $100,000 cars?  Are you suddenly driving a second-class car, or are you just suffering from envy created by a slick marketing team?  Assuming both cars are in decent, working order and assuming that you’re a competent driver, don’t you arrive at your final destination no matter which car you’re driving?  Someone else may choose to over pay to ride in a little more comfort and style, but if you have a full tank of gas, a good map and a healthy supply of tunes, there’s no reason why someone else’s choice should stop you from having a great road trip. 

Read the Macleans articles here:

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2008/12/13/public-vs-private-universities-in-canada/

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2008/12/18/the-private-university-debate/

http://beyond-school.org/2008/08/22/death-of-genius/

But, admissions isn’t an exact science with students applying to several more institutions than they could possibly attend, and therefore with universities offering conditional acceptance to far more students than they can actually admit, the summer is when all the gaps get filled.

Here’s a direct link to the search page that this year’s high school seniors are using to see which Ontario universities still have open spots, and in specifically which programs.  The search allows you to narrow down or view all openings.  Simply choose an institution (or not, to see all), a program (or not, to see all) and enter a “Top Six” average and you can view the list of all programs with open spots that meet your criteria.

Of course, one hopes that you won’t have to use this tool when it’s your year to apply, but it’s good to know that it’s there, just in case!

Link to OUAC web application

I won’t even pretend to touch the surface issue itself as I believe this is not the place for that discussion.

What irks me, though, is the thinking that every academic, political, social, humanitarian or religious inclination needs to fight to become an official “student club” of the university.  (And, I have a little experience in this area, as a former Director of Clubs and Services on the Glendon College Student Union’s executive.)

The university choir I founded was a “club” for one year, and I think we probably received $100 from the Student Union.  I felt that was justified; we were representing Glendon both in local singing competitions and at the local hospital when we’d sing for people at Christmas.  And, there was money to spare going out to clubs and no one questioned its use. But, once I became the person responsible for arbitrarily determining and dishing out club funding, I withdrew the choir as an official club.  Of course, I felt there was an inherent conflict of interest.

But also, my main concern in creating and running my organization wasn’t the money.  It wasn’t having Glendon’s name attached to us.  It was singing.  Glendon was pretty small and there weren’t a lot of ready-made performing arts activities for which you could just sign up.  If you wanted an experience, you had to create it.  And we did.

For money, we organized BRAVO! our annual “spectacle musicale” and invited anyone to get involved and perform.  The choir incurred all the expenses (venue rental fees, equipment rental, advertising, programs etc.), so we sold tickets and retained all the revenue, which also helped to offset the choir’s costs such as paying for sheet music, entering competitions and traveling to perform.  Another group approached us about organizing the for-sale refreshment table as a fundraiser for their own group, and we happily cooperated.

We didn’t need the school to tell us we could sing.  Furthermore, it never occurred to us that, without official club status and funding, we couldn’t get together and sing.

So, the Maclean’s article goes on to defend free speech, political activism, yadda yadda yadda.  (Did I just yadda yadda yadda student rights?)  That’s all well and good, but that’s not the real issue.  The real issue, I think, is below in my comment on Maclean’s website (which as I type is awaiting moderation):

Comment by Sarah Rainsberger on 28 May 2008:

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

I guess my only comment is, since when did anyone need a university-sanctioned “club” to be politically active and engaged? There’s nothing to stop any group of people who happen to attend the same university from finding each other and engaging in whatever form of activism they wish.

If the university doesn’t want to fund them (and, I can think of a lot of “clubs” that could be proposed to a university that they might not wish to fund) then surely there are larger community, provincial or national organizations supporting the same cause who might be able to provide financial support or other resources (such as pamphlets or speakers) to promote their activities.

Doesn’t this whole debate over official club status imply that it’s somehow up to the the university to determine which actions are or aren’t legitimate? Why give the institution that power? Why define your own legitimacy based on school designation? Does official designation make the group’s actions any more meaningful, relevant or important? Are they unable to meet, discuss, learn and teach if they are not an official club? Or, do people find themselves just not that “into” the cause if they have to pay for their own poster paper?

Part of the university experience is about developing one’s own independence. I would respect these groups if they believed so much in their actions that they formed their *own* group and spend their time actually furthering their cause. Instead, this mentality confers upon the university some sort of special powers to legitimize actions that a public educational institution seriously shouldn’t be given.

Go to university and, by all means, CHANGE THE WORLD!  Stand up for what you believe in.  Organize yourselves with like-minded (and perhaps not-so-likeminded) people to help make our communities and our country even better than it is now.  Don’t be afraid to hold a controversial or unconventional point of view.  Be true to yourself, do no harm to others and seek to learn from those around you.  Do ths on campus, off campus, on the way to campus, at the campus gates (even blocking them when appropriate) . . .

But don’t give your university the power to legitimize (or outlaw) your thoughts, your actions or your beliefs.  You don’t need the university’s permission to change the world, play chess, hold Bible studies or sing in a choir.

And when you ask for that permission – to be legitimized in the eyes of the university – you are really only legitimizing the university’s supposed hold over you.  Asking permission implies you never had the right in the first place.  You don’t need anyone’s permission to fight for your cause, self-organize or make a contribution to your society.  Don’t waste your time asking.

It never hurts to know what these guys are discussing.  Michelle Lea, Director of Admissions, Brock University was a panel moderator for a session entitled, “Admissions Roundtable: Reflecting on Trends in the Canadian Post-Secondary System.”  I’m going to ask her whether homeschooling came up at all during that session.  Otherwise, I didn’t see anything on the schedule indicating that they’re talking about us. 

“While literacy among the general population improved between 1994 and 2003, those in the upper echelons of education were not as literate as graduates a decade earlier, the federal agency said Monday.

“This may point to an education system that is doing better for those at the lower end, but doing a poorer job of generating literacy for those at the top,” said Statistics Canada.”

…

The result is a narrowed literacy gap in Canada, with fewer lower achievers and fewer higher achievers, which is considered internationally to be the standard for a solid education system.

…

“Meeting the skill needs of a larger and more diverse population is likely to imply less educational effort being devoted to those whose initial skills clearly exceeded the minimum level,” said Statistics Canada.

In other words, a university education today may not ensure that you work your literacy muscles as hard as in the past.

The findings are entirely in keeping with some of the other reading I’ve been doing (Jeff Rybak, to name just one author) that highlights the “all things to all people” mentality that many Ontario universities have been (or have felt) forced to adopt.

University is no longer a sacred ivory tower for the academic elite, and generalist degrees have fallen in popularity to specialized and professional programs, many of which may not be chock full of old-school literacy goodness.

Of course, this doesn’t in and of itself mean that university has just become a holding-pen for young adults who are pressured to enroll by a credential-worshiping job market.

It does mean, however, that it has never been more important to examine why you want to go to university and what you hope to take away from the experience, even if you’re the type of academic student who never felt the need to ask yourself these questions before.

It’s no longer good enough to go to university because “that’s what academically-oriented people do.” You can no longer assume that an Ontario university will cater to your needs and goals simply because you’re the typical academic-ish kind of kid.

The universities may say you’re still their target market. I’m sure in many ways they wish you were still their target market. But in reality, universities cater to a wide range of students attending school for a wide range of reasons.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this diversity of function and purpose is the immediate problem.

The problem is that while the attitudes and perceptions of the “university isn’t for me” student have changed concerning university education, those of the “traditional” university-bound student have not.

What I mean by this is that a kid who 10 or 20 years ago wouldn’t have thought of himself as “university material” is bombarded today with the message that university is absolutely for him.

But, if you already think of yourself as “university material” then it’s easy to ignore the sideshow of the new, cool face of university. Because most of us do have this traditional picture of university in our minds, it’s easy to assume that your academic university program will just be there for you, Norman Rockwell-like, complete with dog fetching pipe and slippers.

The article above reminds us that a narrowed literacy gap (few low achievers but at the same time, few high achievers) is the international standard for a good education system. That indicates a good system, but what’s good for the system isn’t necessarily good for any one individual inside the system.

What I take away from this article is that you have to take personal responsibility, now more than ever, for your own education. Simply following the Ontario university track doesn’t guarantee that your academic kid’s academic potential will be realized.

This isn’t a slag against the universities, nor is it a call to arms to demand we return to an archaic system that doesn’t serve our modern marketplace.

It is a reminder, though, that school in general (and that includes post-secondary institutions) is meant to provide a solid education to everyone. . . which can perhaps mean a spectacular education to none.

If spectacular is what you’re going for, just keep in mind that as an academic student, you’ll have put just as much effort into researching and choosing your school as:

• the student who needs to find a school that can accommodate his learning differences;
• the student who needs to find a program that will allow her to continue to train for the Olympics;
• the student who needs to ensure that the buildings and residences are wheelchair accessible

Ours is a university system of choice where everyone’s needs and expectations must be explicitly spelled out. Know what yours are, and don’t make any assumptions about what the university is or isn’t offering you.

While the university system isn’t perfect, it needs to be protected from the influence of the secondary school system, if only because the secondary school’s concerns are not the university’s concerns.

University students, for the most part, have reached the age of majority. Even those that have not have at least surpassed the requirements for compulsory attendance in school. As different as a Gr. 12 math class is from a Gr.9 math class, where students are still compelled to attend, the difference between a Gr. 12 math class and a university math class is greater still. The classes are held with different expectations: nothing short of an A is acceptable to a university applicant, but once in university, Bs and even Cs can look pretty good.

The primary career activity of most professors is research, not teaching. The landscape is changing somewhat with the increase in part-time or contract faculty who must sometimes scramble to pick up classes to earn a living, but for the most part, past achievement and future innovation in one’s field are characteristics of university professors, not high school teachers.

Elementary and secondary school attendance are locally based whereas one has their choice of any university. This may sound like a trivial distinction, but I know a thing or two about lazy computer programmers. Tell me that your local high school does NOT auto-fill the province field with “Ontario” in their database of student addresses. I don’t want to think about the added cost to update student records with a country field.

OK, so I’ve given some sound and one “I just plain don’t trust them” reasons for keeping the two entities separate. But, in all seriousness, the goals of the institutions are just too different to be effectively melded together. One hinges on tight provincial control of curriculum, attendance and pedagogy, attempting to provide (whether they want it or not) the same thing to students who are in no position to refuse. The other prides itself (at least historically) on academic freedom and discovery while offering a variety of paths (some would claim too many paths) ranging from academic to professional, general to hyperspecialized.

I just can’t see much common ground between the two sets of teachers, and yet, the Ontario Secondary School Teacher’s Federation (union) has been finding its way into the university system.

Now, those much more cynical than I would argue that all unions do today anyway is demand salary increases. So, why wouldn’t university staff want to hitch its wagon to a large, provincial union?

But, if we go with the assumption that being part of a union means having the same interests at heart, then why on earth would university staff want to join a high school union? So they can be forced to strike when the next provincial government makes radical changes to the high school education system again? So that they can get caught up in issues that don’t concern them, forced to feign interest in topics surrounding P.D. (or P.A.) days, teacher licensing, and the Gr. 10 literacy test?

That’s why I was shocked to read a short blurb stating that the University of Waterloo had voted at the end of the month on this very issue. As far as I can tell, the results are not yet in. Apparently, there are disputes over whether the OSSTF had enough consent of the membership to even hold the vote. Furthermore, several votes were “segregated” at the polling station because there was a question as to whether certain voters fell into the appropriate job categories to vote.

As shocked as I was to discover that this vote had been held, when I dug around for more information, I was even more surprised to learn that “upwards of 1,400 or 2.3 per cent of their total membership belongs to the university community with members from the universities of Brock, Ottawa and Algoma.”

I just don’t get it. I’m thinking that my first rule of thumb would likely be, “If the organization name doesn’t represent me, maybe the organization is not for me.”

But then again, for how many years was I a member of the “Ontario Federation of Teaching Parents” when, as I’ve made very clear in the past, I’m not a parent? But in that case, I had a specific goal in mind that only the homeschooling community was actively working towards: breaking down the barriers of university entrance for students without a high school diploma.

At the time, every seedy tutoring company located over a bakery in a strip mall was applying for government accreditation so they could issue high school credits and cash in on the “credit shopping” craze. I wanted to go in the other direction. If students didn’t need a high school diploma for university entrance, then they didn’t have to fall victim to the whims of educational and pedagogical fads nor get sucked into the grade inflation race caused by easy access of marks for sale. They could “radically” choose a their own path (which ironically, was often more traditional than the school system itself!) and prepare themselves for university however they saw fit. This was my vision, and if I had to align myself with “strange bedfellows” to realize it, then so be it!

So, if we go with the assumption that the university staff is getting something out of the deal, or that some goal is being achieved . . . what is it? Are the universities concerned about the underprepared first year class and want to become more involved in what goes on at the secondary level? Do the universities want to show support for their secondary school counterparts, whom they think have a “tougher” job than they do? Do university profs want easier access to high school teaching jobs as an option, and think this might be a way around teacher certification?

I honestly don’t know what the arguments in favour of this alliance are. (In a cursory reading of a few websites, I’ve heard only the opposition speak.) If people vote in favour of it, there must be something in it for them. I’m all for people improving their own situation, I just hope this isn’t the beginning of the end of the separation of secondary and post-secondary.

I was a graduating senior during the York strike of ’97 where classes were pretty much canceled in February and never resumed. I was sympathetic to my professors, who could clearly articulate and stood behind the reasons for the strike. Fortunately I didn’t lose any credits, nor was I asked to “come back next year” to write any final exams (on my own dime) as happened to several others.

If my graduating year had been disrupted because my prof’s hands were forced by a striking OSSTF, I’m not sure I would have been so sympathetic.

Congratulations to:
-   Mazorgata Dubiel, Simon Fraser University
-   Katherine Frego, University of New Brunswick (Saint John)
-   Sorel Friedman, Université de Montréal
-   Robert Lapp, Mount Allison University
-   TA Loeffler, Memorial University
-   Peter Mahaffy, King’s University College
-   Daniel Pratt, University of British Columbia
-   Patangi Rangachari, McMaster University
-   Mercedes Rowinsky-Geurts, Wilfrid Laurier University
-   James Silcox, University of Western Ontario

More than anything, it’s your professors who will make or break your university experience.  Be kind to your profs!  Recognize the good ones and give credit where credit is due! 

Tibbits (Conestoga College president) said presidents of Wilfrid Laurier University, University of Guelph, University of Windsor and McMaster University plan to attend the meeting; along with presidents of Niagara College, Mohawk College, Fanshawe College, Lambton College, Conestoga College and possibly St. Clair College.

Cooperation is a good thing.  More options is a good thing.  Seamless transitions between institutions is a good thing.

The difficulty Ontario homeschoolers have gaining access to Ontario colleges (as opposed to universities) is a bad thing.  Let’s hope that the college application process for homeschoolers tends towards the university model, and not the other way around.

The latest brainchild to come out of post-secondary education circles (in the US) is a regulation that would limit the number of university courses a student is allowed to drop during their degree.

Let’s put aside for a moment my aversion to anyone telling you what you can or cannot choose to study, especially when you’ve already paid for it in the first place.

As the article points out, this becomes a logistical nightmare: there’s suddenly a whack of more information to keep track of, and they expect that this information will follow you from school to school.

Dropping courses has been the staple of academic advising for as long as I can remember. Not sure whether you can handle a full 5 courses? Sign up for them, and after the first month if it’s too much, drop one and pick it up over the summer. Lost a few weeks due to personal circumstances? Write off the semester (if you have to) and start fresh next term.

There are already deterrents in place for dropping courses like they’re going out of style, your transcript, for one. Academic probation is another.

Anyone who makes a career out of dropping classes isn’t going to be “scared straight” by this new regulation. But, the policy may just mess up the academic lives of those in need of flexibility.

Original article from the Dallas News: College officials say law capping dropped classes may hurt students